Pretty Unhealthy Format: Paperback

Why are we obsessed with wellness, but our health is getting worse? How have we messed up our relationship with food and exercise so badly? We are more obese, less active and more stressed than ever before and it's killing us. Today, we're more likely to die from a lifestyle disease than any other cause, and many of these would be preventable if we took better care of our health. Enter a vast wellness industry that has emerged in recent years, making big money promoting 'healthy' lifestyles. Except the aim isn't to make your body work better: it's to make your body look better.

Equipped with Instagram accounts or wellness blogs, each health advocate leads an army of people towards what is labelled 'health' but might actually be far from it. We are obsessed with body transformation and fitspiration, but the wrong advice is making us poor, tired and pretty unhealthy instead.

Pretty Unhealthy is a call to reclaim the definition of true health: to aim for bodies that are resilient to disease and can do everything we need them to do; and for us to feel emotionally happy in those bodies.

Dr Nikki Stamp, FRACS, is a cardiothoracic surgeon, one of only 11 female heart surgeons in Australia. Her clinical work is at the forefront of cardiothoracic surgery, including transplants and congenital heart disease. She has a particular interest in women's heart disease and how the medical system can better serve female patients. Nikki is the author of Can You Die of a Broken Heart?, which has been translated into 7 languages, and Pretty Unhealthy. She has hosted heart health episodes for Australia's flagship science TV program Catalyst as well as hosting Operation Live, in which she commentated a live caesarean birth and live open-heart surgery.